Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to computer science and, more specifically, to a platform for authoring, storing, and searching workflows.
Description of the Related Art
The complexity of some software applications makes the learning curve with respect to those software applications very steep. In order to improve efficiency and software product familiarity, past efforts have been made to create user workflows that provide guidance and instructions to users for solving the specific problems being worked on by users with the software or for achieving certain goals or outcome with the software. A workflow may describe, for example, a sequence of steps and functions a user can execute to solve a particular problem or achieve a particular goal. In some cases, a workflow may be represented graphically, with geometric shapes representing the different steps and functions of the workflow that need to be taken by the user. Thus, workflows are very effective tools for providing users with quick visual understandings of the overall steps that need to be taken to solve certain problems or to achieve certain goals.
One drawback of conventional workflows, however, is that the workflows typically include only a limited amount of description and content for the different steps depicted within the workflow. For example, a workflow may include only a title for a particular step and/or a brief textual description of the step. A further drawback is that conventional workflows are not captured and retained in a way that allows large numbers of workflows to be easily stored and retrieved. An additional drawback is that conventional workflows are not organized or related in ways that allow easy searching of relevant workflows to allow workflows to be easily shared among users. Because of the problems surrounding storing and retrieving workflows and relating workflows to one another, many workflows generated by past users are not shared with current users, which results in substantial inefficiencies by forcing current users to “recreate the wheel” when using complex software applications.
As the foregoing illustrates, there is a need in the art for more effective ways to author, store, and search workflows.